IT’S ONE of the most exciting and mysterious episodes of wartime ­Scotland.

At the height of hostilities, Hitler’s right-hand man Rudolf Hess parachuted into a field to the south of Glasgow, while his plane plummeted to earth.

Captured by a farmer and taken into custody by the Dad’s Army heroes of the Home Guard, Hess’s arrival has ­mystified the world ever since.

But according to a new book, it was the culmination of an elaborate con by British agents to stop the Germans invading Britain.

It had been claimed Hess was seeking a secret ­armistice or had gone mad.

Now a team of amateur historians claim Hitler had been fooled into thinking a group of aristocrats had persuaded King George VI to oust Winston Churchill and seek peace with Berlin.

By pretending Britain might enter talks, they hoped to stave off a German ­invasion.

Authors John Harris and Richard Wilbourn say the plan involved a series of secret rendezvous in Madrid and Geneva between Nazi diplomats and Finnish agents claiming to ­represent the Royal family.

It worked so well, they say, that Hitler sent his trusted aide to seal the deal.

The writers, who have published three previous books on the Hess affair, studied plane wreckage, communiques and flight plans from the incident on May 10, 1941. John said: “When I was younger, I was always interested in the story and when I started reading up on it, I just didn’t believe the official story.

“My thinking was that Germans just don’t go mad, jump into an aircraft and fly to the enemy in the middle of the war – there must be more to it.

“We have looked at the detailed ­position of the two nations in the spring of 1941 which gives a lot of reason to Hess’s thinking and why he flew.”

Our front page in 1941 (Image: Daily Record)

The team’s research kicked off at Lennoxlove House in Haddington, East Lothian, where Hess’ maps are kept after being presented to the Duke of Hamilton after the German’s capture.

John realised the maps were more detailed and ­technical than previously thought and that the mission was too well planned to be the voyage of a madman.

John and Richard inspected the ­fuselage of the Hess’s ­Messerschmitt BF110 plane. Based on his flight path, realised Hess would not have had enough fuel, to make it all the way from southern Bavaria to Scotland.

If he had to make a pit-stop in Germany or German-occupied territory, that could prove he did not act alone.

John said: “The Hess flight was a well-planned peace mission emanating from the highest levels of the Nazi government. It was definitely a ­sanctioned peace mission and Hitler was in on it. They were about to invade Russia and they were under terrific ­pressure.

“The British knew that, so they started a disinformation campaign giving Hess the impression that if he flew to Britain, he would be taken to the King, who would then make peace with Germany.

“Churchill had made it clear he would not make peace, so constitutionally, it was only the King who could also do it.“

John added: “Hess flew to Scotland to circumvent the British government. He thought figures in Scotland such as the Duke of Kent and the Duke of Hamilton shared his viewpoint on making peace.

“They also had a right of passage to the King and controlled large parts of Scottish airspace, facilitating the flight.”

The book claims the RAF were waiting for Hess and knew exactly where he was meant to land. A fighter pilot had been ordered to intercept Hess above RAF Dundonald airfield in Ayrshire but the German became lost and had to bail out.

He landed near the village of ­Eaglesham and the plane crashed near Carluke, ­Lanarkshire.

John said: “That instruction was so specific that the intercept point was at the end of the Dundonald runway, where Hess was heading.

“We knew he was expected because of the fact that the RAF pilot was vectored to intercept at that point, instead of a more obvious target such as Glasgow or Clydebank. He had got lost and was running late by about 40 minutes, which meant the sun had gone down and he couldn’t land in the dark.”

John believes had he not been lost, Hess would have been shot down in the air and interrogated then killed.

The plot had to be kept secret because the British government were trying to coax the US into the war.

Churchill did not make any comment on Hess’ arrival for almost two years, while the embarrassed Germans claimed Hess had been deluded and flown off of his own accord.

Hess was kept prisoner in various locations across the UK for the rest of the war, then repatriated to Germany for the Nuremberg war crime trials. He killed himself in Spandau prison, Berlin, in 1987, at the age of 93. Instead of invading the UK, Germany carried on fighting the western front and invaded Russia just weeks later, weakening their grip on Europe.

John said: “The British thinking was that if they gave the impression that we wanted to make peace, Germany needn’t invade.

“And that’s what happened. They didn’t invade Britain, they attacked Russia instead and they both fought each other.”

* Rudolf Hess: A New Technical Analysis of the Hess Flight, May 1941, by John Harris & Richard Wilbourn, is published by The History Press, £18.99